What do you mean you've never heard of it?
Ok, so neither had we. And after visiting it, we now know why.
To quote the Lonely Planet, "Trainspotters will marvel, while non-trainspotters will probably wonder what the hell they're looking at"... So we had to go and see it.
The Raurimu Spiral is a bendy bit of train track for getting trains up a steep bit of hill. It involves a big loop and then a spiral, with a couple of tunnels thrown in for good measure. Apparently an engineering masterpiece in its day (1906), it is hard not to be underwhelmed by the experience 109 years later. It doesn't help that you can't actually see any of it, even from the specially designed viewing platform! At least there is a model to give you a clue. Perhaps the photos will enlighten you, perhaps they won't. Either way, I wouldn't lose any sleep if I were you!
Ok, so neither had we. And after visiting it, we now know why.
To quote the Lonely Planet, "Trainspotters will marvel, while non-trainspotters will probably wonder what the hell they're looking at"... So we had to go and see it.
The Raurimu Spiral is a bendy bit of train track for getting trains up a steep bit of hill. It involves a big loop and then a spiral, with a couple of tunnels thrown in for good measure. Apparently an engineering masterpiece in its day (1906), it is hard not to be underwhelmed by the experience 109 years later. It doesn't help that you can't actually see any of it, even from the specially designed viewing platform! At least there is a model to give you a clue. Perhaps the photos will enlighten you, perhaps they won't. Either way, I wouldn't lose any sleep if I were you!
After lunch we went up to the visitor centre on Ruapehu to chat to the guys who are taking us up tomorrow. We also called in to the DOC office to check the weather forecast. Apparently they are expecting 120km/h winds in a couple of days. This is due to cyclone Pam which has just caused a major disaster in Vanuatu.
If all goes to plan we'll be heading up here tomorrow (yes, we are taking the chairlift, at least some of the way).
The guide said that we should be fine to go up tomorrow as the cyclone isn't due to hit until early evening.... Watch this space!
Well thank you for the amazing Tongariro pics. Never before have we seen such a - well, volcano-y volcano! Explosion craters sound fun if one retires to a safe distance like, presumably, 100km.
ReplyDeleteNow as for the rail spiral. I THINK I (C) may have heard of it. I quite like pioneer trainey stuff, and have marvelled at the Georgetown Loop in Colorado and the switchbacks on the Cusco to Machu Picchu route, and travelled on both. All three are amazing bits of engineering for getting rail routes up completely impossible gradients. Pity the Raurimu Spiral is completely invisible, but I love the illustrative model. Looks like an Art Installation.
The PeruRail switchbacks (currently only operating on one side of the mountain range, out of the Sacred Valley) entail the train reversing, and the guard hopping out to change points. It was dark when we were on it, but you got the sort of idea, as the level in the obligatory glass of Pisco Sour went alternately one way, then the other.
Marvellous!
The model looks like some of the things I used to build on Rollercoaster Tycoon in my youth, which inevitably ended with lots of people being sick and/or dying.
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